Best, most common, easiest to use tool to draw UML's

Hi all What is the best tool, the most common tool, the tool with the most market share and easiest to use tool out there for drawing UML diagrams, particularly Class, Component and Sequence/Collaboration Diagrams? [ August 25, 2003: Message edited by: Ahoo Ahoojan ]

The tool with most measurable marketshare must be Rational Rose--it's the de facto tool for big enterprises with big wallets. However, there are plenty of other products such as ArgoUML, Poseidon, MagicDraw and Together ControlCenter.

And the easiest tool is a whiteboard or napkin. What the *best* tool is heavily depends on what you are drawing the diagrams for. What are you drawing the diagrams for?

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And the easiest tool is a whiteboard or napkin. And I'd reckon that this is also the "tool" with the biggest market share. I've seen a whole lot more whiteboards, napkins and general bits of paper than I have copies of Rational Rose. Most UML drawings I've seen have been drawn by hand. A lot have been drawn using Visio, Paintshop Pro, Powerpoint and other general drawing software. I've hardly seen any produced using "big name" UML tools. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the diagrams produced by the big UML tools are most often just filed somewhere as a process requirement, and never actually looked at by real people I'm interested as to what tou are trying to learn from the original questions, though. What information do you want to convey through UML diagrams? To whom? How do you plan to test or determine whether the tool you eventually choose is fit for purpose?

Hi all I am trying to draw the UML diagrams for part II of the Sun Certified Architect exam. The require three diagrams minimum and they are of the following typs: Class, Component and Sequence/Collaboration Diagrams. So the most popular is Rational Rose? But it is actually not needed at all, you can just use a regular drawing tool like Adobe photo shop??? I would appreciate any good suggestions!

Frank Carver
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Joined: Jan 07, 1999
Posts: 6920

posted Aug 27, 2003 02:18:00

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you can just use a regular drawing tool like Adobe photo shop??? I'm sure you can draw them by hand and just scan in the finished drawing if it suits you! The main advantage of drawing software over pencil-and-paper is that it is usually easier to change if you decide part of the drawing is not right. That's why people often use vector drawing tools like Visio, or PowerPoint which offer the ability to move and re-align things. If you are comfortable with Photoshop, by all means use that. The important thing is to get on and provide what your customer (in this case the people markimg the assignment) wants, and not to get hung up about the tools. The important thing is the end result, not how you get there.

One of the criteria for grading in the SCEA is strict compliance to UML. Drawing by hand or with a graphics program is fine and many times easier than using a complex UML tool however you are obviously not guaranteed to be fully UML compliant. This is normally not a problem, and many times is a beneficial when UML comes up lacking or is too complex, but for the SCEA it is not desired. For the above reason I would definitely recommend using a tool like MagicDraw or ArgoUML for the SCEA assignment. They are free(Argo) or cheap(MagicDraw) and definitely get the job done. Browse thru some of the posts in the SCEA forum if you want to get a feel for what other people have used.

Jim Martin
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Joined: Oct 31, 2002
Posts: 80

posted Aug 28, 2003 12:47:00

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Thank you, I'll be back with more questions. But for now I am just going to draw by hand and see how it goes.

One of my friend has used Rational Rose for SCEA and has submitted his assignment. There are some marks for UML compliance. So the question. Now,please answer my question.

Lasse Koskela
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Joined: Jan 23, 2002
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posted Sep 03, 2003 22:51:00

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How about drawing the diagrams with any tool of your choice, printing out the results and comparing manually to the UML specification? Rational Rose uses, by default, some "visual hints" that are proprietary but those can be switched off. How about posting the question to our SCEA forum (after doing a search first, ofcourse)?

Originally posted by Lasse Koskela: How about drawing the diagrams with any tool of your choice, printing out the results and comparing manually to the UML specification? Rational Rose uses, by default, some "visual hints" that are proprietary but those can be switched off. How about posting the question to our SCEA forum (after doing a search first, ofcourse)?

Originally posted by Ahoo Ahoojan: Hi all What is the best tool, the most common tool, the tool with the most market share and easiest to use tool out there for drawing UML diagrams, particularly Class, Component and Sequence/Collaboration Diagrams? [ August 25, 2003: Message edited by: Ahoo Ahoojan ]

A very good tool is Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems. It is cheap (you can download a trial version also), and has loads of functionality. Regards, Fintan